Support for populism is often attributed to xenophobia, racism,
sexism;
to
anger
and resentment at
immigrants, racial or ethnic minorities, or “uppity” non-traditional women.
According
to these
accounts
, people who feel
socially resentful
may
reject
established politicians
as favoring those “others” over people like
themselves, and
turn to outsider populistic leaders.

But it is also possible that
t
hose
who back
populist movements or
politicians
may suffer from
real
material deprivation
s
:
many years of
low or stagnant incomes;
job losses; inadequate housing or health care; blighted co
mmunities
;
and years of
budget cuts
(Autor et al., 2016)
(Autor et al., 2017)
(Storm, 2017)
(Temin, 2016)
(Monnat and Brown, 2017)
.
They may blame
government
s
a
nd established
politicians
for doing little to help.

Of course
s
ocial and economic factors may interact
with
each other
in
complicated ways. Anti
-
immigrant attitudes may reflect fears of job competiti
on as
well as cultural anxiety
. Economic deprivation may make people susceptible to
demagogic scapegoating
that
blames
their t
r
oubles on
foreigners.
Gender and racial
stereotypes
, too, may
be
exacerbated by economic suffering
–
or activated by
political appeals.

We hope
to help sort out which specific
sorts of
economic and social factors
have been how important
in produc
ing
support for populi
sm
, by examining a
particular case:
the
remarkable rise to the U.S. presidency of Donald
J.
Trump
, which
surprise
d
, dismay
ed
, and
aroused
active opposition
from
nearly the entire
establishments of both major
U.S.
political
parties.

The present paper offers a preliminary look at
some
proximate
causes
of
Trump’s success:
the
belief
s, attitudes, and preferences among
individual
American
s
that permitted or facilitated Trump’s
electoral
success.
Our data are drawn mostly
from the America
n Na
tional Election Survey for 2016. This is a national sample
which has
only recently opened to researchers.
Fitting its
data into longer term
trends and, especially,
contextualizing it with
the specifics of geography and local
economies takes time
and we
ran out of it for this paper
.
As a consequence, we have
not yet been able to address
how
historical events and long
-
term trends
that
–
over
a period of
many
years
–
le
d up to and may have been fundamental causes of
the
outcome of the electi
on. That is a
very large yellow flag
, given the strong evidence
that place
and long run economic trends
figured substantially in both the primaries
and the outcome of the general election
(Monnat and Brown, 2017)
(Guo, 2016)
.